Ezinma was still sleeping when everyone else was astir, and Ekwefi asked
Nwoye's mother and Ojiugo to explain to Obierika's wife that she would be late. She
had got ready her basket of coco-yams and fish, but she must wait for Ezinma to wake.
"You need some sleep yourself," said Nwoye's mother. "You look very tired."
As they spoke Ezinma emerged from the hut, rubbing her eyes and stretching her
spare frame. She saw the other children with their water-pots and remembered that they
were going to fetch water for Obierika's wife. She went back to the hut and brought her
pot.
"Have you slept enough?" asked her mother.
"Yes," she replied. "Let us go."
"Not before you have had your breakfast," said Ekwefi. And she went into her
hut to warm the vegetable soup she had cooked last night.
"We shall be going," said Nwoye's mother. "I will tell Obierika's wife that you
are coming later." And so they all went to help Obierika's wife--Nwoye's mother with
her four children and Ojiugo with her two.
As they trooped through Okonkwo's obi he asked: "Who will prepare my
afternoon meal?"
"I shall return to do it," said Ojiugo.
Okonkwo was also feeling tired, and sleepy, for although nobody else knew it,
he had not slept at all last night. He had felt very anxious but did not show it. When
Ekwefi had followed the priestess, he had allowed what he regarded as a reasonable and
manly interval to pass and then gone with his machete to the shrine, where he thought
they must be. It was only when he had got there that it had occurred to him that the
priestess might have chosen to go round the villages first. Okonkwo had returned home
and sat waiting. When he thought he had waited long enough he again returned to the